NCrunch: execute tests as you type

ncrunch.net

21 points·luu··10 comments

I've been using NCrunch at work for a few years now and it's really indispensable, especially if you have tests that run fairly quickly. You get test results and code coverage for your change a few seconds after typing. The only drawback is that I frequently forget to commit changes because the tests use the current editor state instead of what's been saved, so I sometimes forget to save.

Isn't the current editor state usually missing semicolons and stuff? Does it wait till you have no syntax errors to start?

Not always. No, it just shows me build errors as well.

Behind the scenes the complete solution is copied to a temporary location and files that are open in an editor are replaced by the current editor state. And then it will effectively try to build and run tests at every keystroke.

Ncrunch is by far and away the best tool I use for .net development. As ubiquitous as resharper, and light years ahead of jetbrains’ continous testing. I can’t believe this is only hitting hacker news now. TDDing is a dream with ncrunch.

Can’t agree more. The support is also great. It even works with .NET Core projects. I wish it existed on VS code.

I get there mostly with a pinned terminal and 'dotnet watch test' in my tests directory

NCruch is fine when it works, but it can go wrong in subtle ways and generally be more trouble than it's worth. IIRC, This was evident when DI, reflection and assembly scanning is involved, to do with the "shadow copy" of the code and binaries and it getting out of sync or behaving differently to the main.

AFAIK, VS Enterprise edition now has the same feature.

Does it? VS Test Explorer runs tests only on demand afaik.

Yep. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/test/live-unit...

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